Free Republic

American once touted as possible ambassador to EU tells of being detained at Boston airport and subpoenaed by Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia inquiry {snip} In a statement sent to the Guardian, Malloch, who described himself as a policy wonk and defender of Trump, said the FBI also asked him about his relationship with Roger Stone, the Republican strategist, and whether he had ever visited the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has resided for nearly six years. In a detailed statement about the experience, which he described as bewildering and intimidating at times, Malloch said the federal...

Margaret Thatcher granted the deathbed request of a spy who masterminded one of the greatest World War II operations. Ewen Montagu wanted to find out the official verdict on Operation Mincemeat, an audacious plan which helped change the course of the war by fooling the Nazis into diverting their troops to the wrong place. Newly-declassified National Archives files reveal that Mr Montagu, a judge who volunteered for the Navy during the war, wrote to Mrs Thatcher from his deathbed with his request.

On #StarWarsDay, discover the original inspiration of "May the Force be with you." According to author Alan Arnold, in 1979 “Margaret Thatcher … won the election and became Britain’s first woman prime minister. To celebrate their victory her party took a half page of advertising space in the London Evening News. This message, referring to the day of victory, was ‘May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations.'”This resulted in a yearly fan tradition of calling May 4 “Star Wars Day” or “May the Fourth be With You Day,” in reference to the Jedi phrase used in the movies,...

Dubbed “Project Moonblower,” during the height of the F-117 Nighthawk’s secrecy in the mid 1980s, the Reagan administration, and even the Gipper himself, offered an invite to the UK Ministry of Defense to join the highly classified program. In newly unsealed UK National Archives files obtained by The Guardian, Reagan’s offer to his good friend and Prime Minister of the UK Margaret Thatcher was casual as can be, with Reagan penning a diplomatic cable that stated in part: “Dear Margaret, I am delighted to hear that you will be able to see Cap (Caspar Weinberger, the US defence secretary at...

Newly released British government files show that leaders and top diplomats were taken by surprise and deeply upset by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s fall from power in November 1990. One of the first responses to Thatcher’s removal as Conservative Party leader and prime minister came from former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who said in a note to Thatcher it was “worse than a death in the family.” […] Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev wrote an affectionate note that for the first time referred to the iron-willed Thatcher as “Margaret.” …

DONALD Trump and Theresa May have vowed to make the special relationship between Britain and the US “stronger than ever”, Britain’s ambassador to Washington has revealed. The President-elect and second British female Prime Minister have agreed over a series of phone calls to build on the legacy that President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher forged. Sir Kim Darroch, praised the billionaire’s “historic and impressive” victory that was “like no other in history” and called leaders to embrace the future that lies ahead.

U.S. President Barack Obama is to send a more senior representative to the funeral of Communist dictator Fidel Castro than he did to the funeral of Margaret Thatcher. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes will attend the funeral of the anti-American firebrand along with Jeff DeLaurentis, the country’s top diplomat in Cuba, as an “unofficial delegation”. By contrast, President Obama was accused of “snubbing” the funeral of Baroness Thatcher in 2013, sending two aging former Secretaries of State to lead a delegation that included no representatives from the incumbent administration.

After a stunning result in the first round of the rightwing presidential primary, François Fillon is now favourite to win the runoff and as a result next year's presidential election. Here's what you need to know about the open admirer of Margaret Thatcher. He’s a big fan of Margaret Thatcher Openly saying you are an admirer of the former Conservative British Prime Minister is normally risky business for a Frenchman. She and Ronald Reagan are often seen as the bad parents of the neoliberal economic revolution in the 1980s that France has never really adjusted to. But Fillon, who was...

The British Foreign Office has recently declassified documents that allegedly prove that Israel sold weapons to Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War between the Latin American nation and the UK. The British government's National Archives department released the files dated November 16, 1984, which include a memorandum from a senior British diplomat who provided details on the Israeli arms sales to Argentina, the London-based Telegraph reported Wednesday. “Israel was one of the few countries to supply Argentina with arms during the Falklands conflict and has continued to do so,” wrote C.W. Long, the UK Foreign Office's then head of the...

“No, no, no!” British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (shown) told the House of Commons on October 30, 1990, to a proposal for a more centralized government in Europe. European Commission President Jacque Delors had announced his support for centralizing power in Europe, away from national governments such as the United Kingdom. He proposed that the European Parliament become the “democratic” body of the European Community, with the Commission as the executive and the Council of Ministers the senate.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's go back to 1990, October 30th, 1990. It's in London, in Parliament, Margaret Thatcher, during a debate on rejecting a move toward a more closely united Europe. Do you know what it was costing the UK every year to be a member of the European Union? It was something to the tune of $18 million a year. Had to pay 'em $18 million a year for privilege of membership in the European Union. (interruption) No, no. I'm aware. I've even got some stuff I printed out here, show prep websites who think this has nothing to...

I was actually looking for some humor to lighten a Friday and stumbled upon this. I had never seen this and about busted a gasket given the vote yesterday. I couldn't imagine anything else that makes more sense to post then this in a most appropriate salute to the Brits vote yesterday!

Sky news just declared victory for Brexit!!!!

She is blonde, a conservative hardliner and has forged ahead in a sphere dominated by men, The Local gives you ten reasons why Esperanza Aguirre is Spain's answer to the Iron Lady. Fresh allegations of corruption within the Madrid branch of the Popular Party has led to Aguirre tendering her resignation as regional head of the party. At The Local we don't believe for a minute that this is the last we will see of a woman who puts personality into politics. The Local gives you ten reasons why Esperanza Aguirre is Spain's answer to the Iron Lady. 1 -...

As we confront a hostile Russia today, the West is unsure what to do. For guidance, perhaps we should look back to the Soviet era, when we possessed a decidedly stronger sense of allied purpose. In February 1984, Margaret Thatcher flew home from the Moscow funeral of the Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. Frustrated by his equally aged successor, Konstantin Chernenko, the British prime minister told her aides, “For heaven’s sake, try and find me a young Russian.” She was searching for change. In London in April 1975, as leader of Britain’s opposition, Thatcher had her first one-on-one meeting with a...

Flattering it might have been. But the lady herself would probably have had something to say about all this rampant inflation. How could a little silver bowl, with a guide price of £400, reach £47,500 in a couple of minutes? How could a signed photo — and she must have signed hundreds, if not thousands — rocket from £600 to ten times that sum in a blink? Moments later, it was snaffled by a mystery buyer in Singapore for a tidy £13,000. Such was the premium attached to anything with the imprimatur of Margaret Thatcher yesterday evening as many of...

“Economics is the method; the object is to change the soul.” So said Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady always believed that democratic capitalism involved the transformation of values as much as it did the improvement of Britain's ailing GDP. Yet few people are aware that Thatcher was a woman of profound faith. She had been a lay Methodist preacher while a student at Oxford University. Later, she would transfer this missionary energy from the pulpit to the political podium. The solid Christian base for Margaret Thatcher's politics goes back to her strict Methodist upbringing and, more specifically, to her father...

Should Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina win the Oval Office, she wouldn’t be making any calls to her counterpart in Russia. “I wouldn’t speak to Vladmir Putin,” Fiorina said. She would, however, rebuild a missile defense program in Poland and conduct military exercises in the Baltic States. “I would guarantee you that after four or five or six months of that kind of behavior, Vladmir Putin will speak differently with the United States of America,” she said. “It’s how people behave. He’s a bully.” Fiorina, the only woman seeking the GOP nomination, is the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She ran...

Recently some detractors and uninformed people have called Carly Fiorina’s conservatism into question. While I’m unaffiliated with any campaign and uncommitted to any candidate I do think it’s imperative to state Ms. Fiorina has more than earned her conservative stripes. First and foremost, Carly’s pro-life credentials are outstanding and she’s proving it consistently on the campaign trail. As the hideous Planned Parenthood videos have circulated, no candidate has been more vocal in calling for defunding Planned Parenthood than Carly. In spite of the national media’s refusal to cover the videos, Fiorina forced the issue onto the national agenda with a...

One of Britain's greatest prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher — the only woman to hold the position, to date — famously addressed her 1980 Conservative Party Conference with the phrase "The lady's not for turning," which became synonymous with her confident, principle-based approach. An impressive figure has burst on the American political stage who embodies a similar style and America might just need her now as Britain needed Thatcher then. With Carly Fiorina's emergence as a formidable Republican presidential candidate — and as the only woman in the lineup — naturally, comparisons are being made to Thatcher. While it is easy...